


Headcounts

by brightblackholes



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Good Babysitter Steve Harrington, Post-Season/Series 02, Steve Harrington-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightblackholes/pseuds/brightblackholes
Summary: After the tunnels, Steve keeps doing headcounts.Written for writer's month day 17: accidental child acquisition
Relationships: Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington & The Party, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler (past)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 276
Collections: Writer's Month 2019





	Headcounts

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this after watching season 2 well over a year ago and trying to finish the writer's month prompts has finally helped me finish. To be honest I'm decently proud of it. Found family and babysitter!Steve are two things that I feel very strongly about.

Four. Dustin, Lucas, Max, Mike.

Steve keeps glancing in the mirror to ensure that they’re all here, subconsciously doing headcounts when he probably should be paying closer attention to the road ahead. He knows that they’re alive and uninjured, if a bit exhausted, but he continuously glances to his right and at the back seat anyway.

Four kids. All present. All accounted for. All safe.

The ride back to the Byers house is quiet. Now that everything is over, the adrenaline that had kept them all functioning at 110% is slipping away, leaving exhaustion in its wake. Lucas’s head is drooping onto Max’s shoulder. Dustin’s eyes keep closing in the passenger seat, only to be jolted open by a bump in the road Steve can’t swerve to avoid. The only one fully awake is Mike, staring attentively out the window and jiggling his leg. It makes sense. The way Nancy talked about them, Will is Mike’s _best_ friend, and if his reaction upon seeing the other girl (El?) is anything to go by, he’s really close with her, too.

Steve parks Billy’s car on the street by the Byers house and everyone files out. Everything is dark, so Steve pushes the kids behind him and leads the way with the bat, just in case. He’s not trusting everything to actually be over until Joyce and Hopper say so. They’ve done their part; now it’s up to the others.

The house is still and empty save for Billy, lying on the floor and out like a light.

“What the hell?” Steve asks.

“Max injected him with the rest of the sedative after he knocked you out,” Lucas says.

“What the hell?” he asks again, but weirder, more alarming things have happened tonight so he sets down the bat and goes to the fridge.

“Do you guys need anything? Water? Milk? Soda? Looks like there’s leftover meatloaf, or something.” Steve almost wants a beer, but he needs to keep his wits fully about him, so he grabs a coke instead. Besides, he needs to be a good example for the kids. “At least get some water. We’ve been rushing around and almost got our eyebrows singed…”

Steve turns to look at them. Four. Dustin, Lucas, Max, Mike. All present, all accounted for, all safe, all dead tired.

“Okay, come on. Sit down before you hurt yourselves.” He ushers them to the couch and they all go willingly except Mike, who moves towards the window. Steve lets him.

“You guys just sit here until the others get back. I’m going to start cleaning up and figure out what to do with him.” He points over his shoulder at Billy, and the kids nod. There isn’t much to be done until he wakes up, anyway, so Steve drags him a bit to the side and props him up a bit. Hopefully Joyce and Hopper get back before he regains consciousness. Steve isn’t sure what he’ll do if Billy tries to go for round two.

The front two rooms are trashed, so Steve begins by trying to right some of the furniture without stepping on any broken pieces. A moment later, Mike appears with a broom and they work together in silence, trying to bring a bit more order to the world.

It’s kind of sad and kind of funny that it takes a situation like this for them to finally get along.

Steve has never really been one for cleaning, but there’s something therapeutic about it now. It’s the easiest thing he’s done all night, and it keeps his mind occupied enough that some of the tension drains out of his shoulders. Mike works diligently beside him, and the amount of glances he sends towards the door lessen as they continue until it flies open.

Four: Joyce in the lead, followed by Jonathan with his arm around Will, who is wrapped in a blanket. Nancy brings up the rear. Steve lets out a sigh of relief at the sight of her. He didn’t know how much fear he had been holding until he saw her with his own eyes, alive and well.

Mike sprints to the door and stops just short of touching them. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the other three kids come closer.

“Will?” Mike asks, and the rubber band of tension in the room snaps. Will slumps forward into Mike’s arms and the rest of the kids join the hug. Jonathan turns to Nancy. Joyce glances around the room until her eyes land on Steve and widen.

“What happened?” she asks, and he’s suddenly aware of how much his face hurts when Nancy finally looks at him.

“Oh, um.” He steps aside and points at Billy with his thumb. “Max’s brother showed up. No big deal. It’s handled.”

“No big deal?” she asks, and Steve can hear the angry-mom lecture before she sighs and deflates.

“There’s towels and bandages in the bathroom. You should clean yourself up.” She turns back to Will and the rest of the kids and Steve feels a bit like the carpet has just been snatched out from under him. It’s jarring, to go from being the person in charge of keeping four others safe to the person with nothing to do, unimportant enough to be dismissed in a second.

He’s not quite sure where the bathroom is, but he heads out of the front room anyway. Eventually he finds it, and the sight of his own face in the mirror makes him recoil. Billy really did a number on him, and he’s going to have to find a way to explain these to his parents without them thinking he has an illegal street fighting ring going on.

“Are you just going to stand there all day staring at yourself, or are you going to actually clean the blood off and try to bring the swelling down?”

It’s Nancy, and Steve can’t help the way he relaxes and smiles at her full, uninjured presence.

“I was getting there,” he says.

“Sure you were,” she teases, moving to the closet and getting out a washcloth. She runs it under the tap and Steve watches her silently as her gentle fingers hold his chin to keep him from flinching at the sting. It’s hard to pretend he’s not in love with her, but he also doesn’t think she expects him to.

“All you had to do was stay inside and protect the kids, and you manage to get in a fist fight with Billy Hargrove instead,” she muses.

“I _was_ protecting the kids. You didn’t see how scared Max was. She was less phased by the tunnel.”

Nancy stills. Steve tries not to wince.

“What tunnel?”

“The kids stole Billy’s car and brought me to the tunnels where we set everything on fire.”

“Steve!”

“I was unconscious when they took the car and stuck me in the back! They knew I was against the idea!” Steve sighs and looks at his hands. “Guess I’m not that great of a babysitter, either.”

“Hey,” Nancy says, fingers tilting his head up to look at her. “They’re alive and unhurt. On a night like tonight, I think that makes you a pretty good babysitter.”

It’s hard to pretend he’s not in love with her as she cleans the rest of the blood from his face and applies band-aids and medical tape where he needs it. When they reenter the main room, Nancy heads straight for Jonathan.

Ten. Two adults, two teenagers, six kids. While they had been in the bathroom, Hopper and the girl had shown up. Mike is gripping her hand like a lifeline, and she looks like she's about to pass out on his shoulder. Hopper is talking to Joyce. Steve looks around the room and takes a moment to marvel at the fact that all of them are here together, alive and well. There’s no other context where he can imagine being with these people all gathered peacefully in a house.

Billy groans behind him and the room falls silent. He starts swearing before he opens his eyes, and when he sees Steve the swearing intensifies. Billy tries to get up before he has full control of his limbs, and it reminds Steve of a very angry Bambi.

“Harrin’on, I’m gonna kill you,” he slurs.

“Son,” Hopper says, stepping forward and turning all attention to him, “don’t.”

Billy takes the time to actually absorb his surroundings and reevaluate the situation.

“I think you should leave,” Hopper says. Billy struggles fully to his feet and Steve takes a little pride in how he has to move around him to walk out in defeat.

“Max!” Billy snaps, and it’s like the entire room closes rank to keep her away from him.

“You leave, she stays,” Hopper says. For a second, Billy looks like he’s going to fight, and Steve wonders how stupid he really is to try and disagree with the chief of police on a night (early morning?) like this, when everyone in the room faced what could have easily been the end of the world earlier. Billy doesn’t fight though, not this time. He walks out the door, gets in his car, revs the engine, and squeals away. Steve lets out a breath, even though he hadn’t really been holding one in.

“I think it’s time for everyone to get some rest,” Joyce says. There are murmurs of agreement. “I think we have some air mattresses and sleeping bags tucked away in the basement, if everyone is okay with staying here.”

“Thanks Mrs. B,” Steve says. “We appreciate that.”

They end up gathering quilts and pillows from all of the bedrooms and spreading those around the floor of the living room until the entire surface becomes one big bed.

Ten. Two adults, sleeping next to each other but not quite close enough to be sleeping together. Three kids: tucked next to Joyce is Will, with Mike and El right next to him. Two teenagers, a little ways away. Lastly, the other three kids.

Dustin is sprawled out, taking up more space on one of the air mattresses than should be possible for one kid. Steve feels a startlingly strong rush of affection.

“Steve?” Dustin asks groggily. “Are you gonna sleep?” He shuffles over and half-heartedly lifts part of his blanket. Steve takes the invitation and lays down.

“Good night, Dustin,” he says. Dustin grunts in reply and Steve drifts off. If he wakes up the next morning with a few new bruises from Dustin’s flailing limbs in the night, any complaining is done with a hint of a smile.

-/-

Three. Dustin, Lucas, Mike.

Steve spots them biking on the side of the road on the way to school the next week. Will is probably getting a ride from his mom or staying home, since any parent who knew what happened would probably hover and Joyce seems to have that particular skill down to a science. Max is probably still getting rides from Billy, and El doesn’t go to school. Dustin had given him her backstory in an explanation of everything that happened last year. While he had been a bit surprised to hear about a psychic child in the area, it really explained a lot of things.

He honks his horn once, and all of their eyes turn to him as he slows down slightly to wave. Dustin lights up, and all three of them lift their hands in an answering greeting. It brightens his day a little bit. His parents are absent and his friends are jerks, but at least three children waved at him today.

It sounds pathetic like that, but still. He turns the memory of their pleased expressions over in his mind and carries it with him when he needs a pick me up.

-/-

Two. Nancy and Jonathan.

Steve tries not to look for them, but he can’t help it. He’s been hardwired to find Nancy in crowds since the first moment she caught his eye, and Jonathan is a near-constant presence by her side now. Steve understands, because he wants to keep everyone involved in the demogorgon ordeal close, too. That isn’t to say it doesn’t still hurt.

Nancy catches him watching them from across the hall and smiles. Steve tries to do the same, but it feels strained.

He doesn’t look at Jonathan as he turns back to his locker. He doesn’t want to see his own discomfort reflected back at him.

-/-

One. Dustin.

Steve opens the door one Saturday to a curly-haired pre-teen smiling at him from his doorstep and partially wonders if he’s still sleeping.

“Henderson?” he asks.

“Steve!” Dustin replies enthusiastically, shouldering his way into Steve’s house. He’s got his backpack on and it seems full to the brim. He’s kicking off his shoes by the time Steve recovers enough to close the door behind him.

“What are you doing here? How do you know where I live?” he asks.

“Mike asked Nancy,” Dustin says, tramping through the hall and finding the living room. “Oh, sweet! Look at this TV!”

“Did you bike here? Dude, it’s November.”

“Well, yeah. You don’t have a radio yet, so I couldn’t exactly tell you to come pick me up. Speaking of…” He rifles around in his backpack for a second, then tosses a rectangular device at him. Steve catches it and sees that it’s one of the walkie-talkie things the kids always carry around.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Call us, obviously.”

“Oh, yeah, obviously. And how am I supposed to do that?”

Dustin rolls his eyes and pats the couch cushion next to him. Steve sits down and spends the rest of the morning learning about radio frequencies and dialogue and etiquette. He knows that he won’t remember at least half of this tomorrow and Dustin gets too easily frustrated with his questions to make a good teacher, but it’s worth it for how his face lights up when Steve successfully transmits and Lucas answers.

Steve makes omelettes for lunch and lets Dustin show him _Star Wars_. The movies are okay, but Dustin is really into them and they provide a distraction from homework, so he tries to pay attention. It’s nice to see a cut and dry story where he knows for sure that the heroes are going to win, and the teddy bear things are cute (“Ewoks, Steve! They’re called ewoks!”), and when he sees ghost Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end while everyone is celebrating he gets a bit emotional.

They order pizza for dinner and Steve absolutely refuses to get anything with mushrooms despite Dustin’s begging.

“Buddy, you’ve got to go home now,” Steve says eventually. They ate late due to the movie marathon, and the sun has dipped well below the sky.

“Aw, really?” Dustin laments. He complains the entire time while Steve is loading his bike into the trunk, shifting the nail bat to make room. He settles a bit during the drive when Steve lets him fiddle with the radio. When they get to his house, Mrs. Henderson opens the front door as soon as they pull up and waves them both inside the moment Steve unloads Dustin’s bike.

The Henderson house is homey and lived in in a way his house could never be. It’s cluttered with pictures and throw pillows with patterns almost as busy as Mrs. Henderson’s housecoat. Steve steps inside to the fragrance of fresh cookies and never wants to leave.

“So you’re the young man my Dustin has been going on and on about! Come in, come in! It’s getting so cold out! Would you like a cookie? Fresh baked chocolate chip!”

He ends up staying an hour, answering Mrs. Henderson’s questions while Dustin chomps on cookies and rolls his eyes. It’s more comfortable than dinners with the Wheelers ever were, and the warm hug he gets when he finally does leave reminds him of the days before his parents started taking business trips that spanned more than five days.

He hasn’t seen them in...two months, maybe? He’s not even sure if they’ll be home for Christmas. It’s been a while since they called.

Still, when Steve goes through his house with another baseball bat, checking windows and turning on lights, the house feels fuller than it has since Nancy last stayed over. As he’s checking the last room, his radio crackles to life with the kids saying goodnight to each other. It’s comforting to hear them rib each other and wish sweet dreams.

“Steve?” Dustin asks once Lucas says goodnight. “Are you there? Over.”

“I’m here.”

There’s no response.

“Dustin?”

“You have to say “over” if you’re done talking.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“Yes, Dustin, I’m here. Over.”

“Okay, just checking in. Goodnight! Over.”

“Goodnight and sweet dreams, over.”

He’s wishing sweet dreams to one of Mike’s nerdy friends. Stranger things have happened.

“Over and out,” Dustin says, and the radio dissolves into silence. For the first time since the tunnels, Steve considers turning off his bedroom light.

-/-

One. Mike.

Out of all of the kids now strangely under his wing, Mike is the last one Steve ever thought would seek him out individually. Still, one week after Dustin gives Steve the radio, he finds Mike Wheeler on his front stoop.

“What, you guys think all me weekends are devoted to babysitting?” he asks. Mike levels him with a withering stare, but Steve still has his pride and doesn’t move from the doorway.

“What?” he asks.

“I need you to take me to Hopper’s cabin so I can see El.”

“Uh, no.”

“Come on,” Mike whines. “I can’t--”

“Absolutely not! She’s in that cabin for her own protection. We’re not even supposed to be talking about her--”

“Steve, _please_. Nancy won’t take me--”

“Well maybe there’s a good reason for that.”

“She’s been all alone for a year, with Hopper as her only human contact. That’s got to be so lonely! Hopper has a shift until six, and I only need an hour.”

“You want me to wait in the car for an hour while you two do who knows what in Hopper’s super secret cabin in the woods that no one is supposed to come within two miles of?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, like it’s supposed to be obvious. Maybe to him, it is. Steve still doesn’t quite understand who El is, but he knows from that night at the Byers house that she’s incredibly important to Mike, and being isolated from everyone except Hopper sounds kind of awful.

He’s supposed to keep the kids safe, and that includes El. Still, how bad can bringing Mike to her really be?

“Fine, but I’m waiting in the cabin and we stay for one hour, not a minute over. Got it?”

Mike smiles, which tells Steve exactly how much this must mean to him.

The drive is not a peaceful one, as his car isn’t exactly equipped for off roading through the woods and Mike sucks at giving directions. They stop out of sight of the cabin and make the rest of the way on foot, avoiding trip wires and trying to cover their tracks.

This is a horrible idea. Steve is way too young to die at the hands of the local police chief.

“One hour,” Steve says when they reach the door. “That’s it.”

Mike rolls his eyes and knocks in a specific pattern. The door flies open.

One. El, the little, curly haired girl in a plaid shirt who somehow saved the world. Her face splits into a wide, delighted grin and she flings herself into Mike’s arms.

“Mike!” she squeals, and Mike laughs. Steve lets them have their moment before ushering them inside, doing up all of the locks on the door because if Hopper is that paranoid, there’s probably a reason. He still doesn’t understand who exactly is after El, or how long she’s going to be under house arrest for her own protection, but he’s going to do his best not to jeopardize her further while keeping her and Mike happy.

“Steve,” El says, making him jump with how close she is when he turns around. “Thank you.”

She says it with such weight and sincerity that it takes him a second to find words.

“Yeah, well, you only have an hour, so don’t thank me too much. Now go hang out, or whatever.”

She runs off and Steve takes a seat in the biggest, comfiest armchair in the room. In a few minutes, El brings him an Eggo waffle while she and Mike chat at the kitchen table. When they move to her room, he doesn’t hear any suspicious noises, and once the hour is up Mike comes quietly.

“Hey Steve?” he asks when they pull up outside the Wheeler’s. “Thanks.”

Steve wants to bask in this moment, but that’s not the mature thing to do, so instead he just says “Don’t mention it.”

Mike exits the car with a slam of his door and tromps off inside. Steve catches the slightest sight of Nancy in the window, outlined by her bedroom light, and drives away.

-/-

Two. Jonathan, Billy. One ally, one enemy.

Steve pulls up to the middle school and considers staying in the car while he waits for the kids to get done with AV club, but he has just as much of a right to be there as them. Mrs. Henderson even invited him for dinner with the promise of baked goods in payment for picking Dustin up.

In the interest of not letting Billy corner him with his seatbelt on if he tries anything, Steve gets out of the car.

Jonathan nods at him.

“Here for Dustin?” he asks.

“And Lucas. You taking Mike today, or am I?”

“So babysitting is a full time job now, eh Harrington?” Billy asks, dropping his cigarette and grinding it under his heel. “Guess since Tommy and Wheeler dropped you, you have a lot more time on your hands.”

_Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react,_ Steve chants to himself. His face healed just in time for his parents’ brief visit between trips, and he isn’t exactly itching for a rematch in front of Jonathan. Steve can’t count on him to be much help.

“Bit surprised you’re so chummy with Wheeler’s new toy,” Billy continues, taking a few steps forward and turning towards Jonathan. “Didn’t you land a few on King Steve before I got here? And now you’ve got his girl. Didn’t take her very long to find a replacement. Think you can satisfy her more than Harrington?”

Jonathan sputters for a second, because he was never made for verbal warfare. Maybe that’s why Nancy likes him so much: Steve always tried to listen to her, but no one listens quite as well as Jonathan Byers.

“Sorry, Billy. This was a private conversation. If you need dating tips that bad, I’m sure you could ask Jonathan nicely some other time, even though a girl like Nancy would never look twice at you. If it’s babysitting tips you’re after, let’s start with this: don’t let your little sister knock you out and threaten you with a bat.”

“She’s not my sister,” Billy hisses, stepping right into his face, “and the only reason she got a jump on me is because I was busy beating your sorry ass.”

Steve holds his ground, consciously keeping his feet planted but his shoulders relaxed. He may not want to actively start a fight in the middle school parking lot, but he does want to get under Billy’s skin a bit. One of the best ways to do that is not to physically rise to the bait while still verbally winding him up.

“There aren’t any nice plates here for you to smash over my head. Think you could take me in a fair fight?”

“ _Billy!_ ” Max calls, and it’s like a switch has been flipped and suddenly Steve is the least interesting thing in the world. The combined glares those two shoot at each other makes Steve glad he’s not in the crossfire.

“You’re late,” Billy snaps, stalking over to his car and yanking the door open. “Dad wanted us home by now.”

“You know AV club always goes late,” Max says, opening the passenger side door with just as much teenage attitude. The rest of their argument is lost as the car tears away. Steve watches it go and wonders how those two survive sharing a house.

“Steve?” Dustin asks, and Steve shakes those thoughts out of his head.

Four. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Will.

“Hey Dustin. How was school?”

Because that’s a question he asks now, just like he carts middle schoolers around and chimes in on the radio sometimes to tell them goodnight.

“Fine,” Dustin says. “What was that?”

“Just Billy.”

“Are you going to fight him again? Because that didn’t go so well last time.”

“Well, Steve started out okay,” Lucas says.

“Thank you! Lucas, you’re my favorite.”

“Hey!”

Steve throws an arm over Dustin’s shoulder and pats his chest once.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s get out of here. I was promised cookies.”

Dustin and Lucas start a rapid-fire debate about the best type of cookies and Steve rolls his eyes.

They’re both wrong. Peanut-butter cookies are obviously the best.

Before he gets in the car, he glances back at Jonathan, Will, and Mike. Jonathan gives him a nod and Steve raises a hand in a half-hearted wave. It might be the first time since the breakup that he’s seen Jonathan without his stomach twisting up.

-/-

Two. Joyce, Hopper.

Steve pulls up to the school a healthy one minute before the dance is supposed to end. A lot of kids are already filtering out to their parents’ cars, but Steve knows Dustin is going to be one of the last kids out, milking the experience for all it’s worth. Apparently Will is still in there, too, if Joyce’s presence in the parking lot is anything to go by. He can pinpoint the exact moment her gaze goes from guarded to recognition, and she waves him over once he puts the car into park.

“Steve, hi,” Joyce says as he glances a bit nervously between her and the chief. “How have you been?”

“Good,” he replies automatically, even though it’s not the whole truth. His parents have been getting on his case about college applications on their calls, but Steve still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, and it’s getting harder to keep up with school now that Nancy isn’t there to keep him on track with study sessions or proofread his essays.

“How are you?” he asks after a moment’s delay.

“Oh, you know,” Joyce says, shifting and rubbing her arms. “As well as can be expected.”

Steve nods and they lapse into an awkward silence. Steve wonders if he should ask Hopper how he’s doing, but the time for that seems to have passed the longer he stands there, and to ask now just to fill dead air would probably be weird.

“Who are you here for?” Joyce asks eventually.

“Dustin, technically,” he says. A flicker of surprise passes her face, and Steve almost finds it strange. Dustin and the rest of the brats have wormed their way so deep in his life now that it’s weird to think not everyone in town is aware. This shows just how little even everyone else who fought the monsters knows about him, and it makes him feel more like an outsider than ever.

“I was going to see if he and the other kids wanted to go to that 24 hour diner on Main,” he adds.

“Oh, that’s very nice of you,” Joyce says. He can hear the unease in her voice and remembers her fussing that night and how deathly pale Will looked. Hopper puts a hand on her shoulder and Steve can see the way she relaxes a fraction at it.

“Let Will go. Jonathan can drive him home,” he says.

Steve hadn’t been planning to invite Jonathan, but having someone else to drive so the kids aren’t packed in like sardines might be nice, and he’ll talk to Jonathan if it means Will can be there. Maybe Nancy will come, too, and he can finally figure out how to be proper friends with them both.

“Steve!” Dustin calls. Speak of the devil.

Six. Dustin (beaming), Will (smiling, Max and Lucas (holding hands), Mike and El (also holding hands). The sight of El startles him, but he supposes it makes a bit more sense for Hopper to be waiting for his kid rather than just hanging out with Joyce in the parking lot.

“Hey! Have fun?” he asks.

“Yeah!” Dustin says, bouncing like an excited puppy. “Nancy danced with me and everyone was jealous!”

Will snorts, but Steve feels a rush of affection that she would do that for Dustin and make his night. He spots her exiting the school with Jonathan, camera tucked under his arm, lingering as they slowly amble over.

“Sounds awesome,” Steve says. “Everyone else have a good time?”

Will is too busy getting fussed over by Joyce to reply, and Mike is too busy watching El get subtly fussed over by Hopper, but Lucas and Max exchange a look and smile. Dustin doesn’t seem bothered at all, and Steve thinks they’re both doing pretty okay with their pieces of heartbreak. When Nancy and Jonathan join them, he’s able to give them a genuine smile.

Steve lets the sounds of everyone’s conversations wash over him and looks around.

Ten. Two adults, two teenagers, six kids. All present, all accounted for, all safe. It’s the first time since that night that they’ve been all in the same place, and it’s strange. Survival is a strange thing. This connection between them is a strange thing. Dustin laughs at something Max says and Nancy catches his eye and Steve things that friendship might be a strange thing, too.

“Who wants food?” he asks. The resounding agreement would have taken him aback had he not previously seen every single kid there try to eat him out of house and home.

“You guys are invited, too,” he says to Nancy and Jonathan.

“Can I, Mom?” Will begs.

“Okay,” Joyce finally says. Steve hopes he’s telepathically telling her not to worry. He’ll keep doing headcounts. Everyone will get home safe tonight and every other night he’s here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


End file.
